Protecting the Pretty Lie
by Mulderzkid
Summary: His father was never going to be able to take the knowledge that the happy, smiling family he thought he had left behind had been a fantasy.


**Protecting the Pretty Lie  
By: Ali Cherry (Mulderzkid)**

"Do honestly think you're worth any more than _him_!" He can see the hatred in the bright blue eyes glowing in the darkened room, and he irrationally wants to shush her. She'll wake up Zak and Lee refuses to let her madness descend on his brother.

"At least he's worth more than you." Lee's words are quiet and defiant. Lee squares his shoulder for the hit, his jaw already tight with suppressed humiliation and angry. If he can advance this fight to the hits before she gets too loud, Zak won't hear anything.

He doesn't expect the heavy crystal tumbler aimed at his head, but his reflexes save him from getting hit. He hears the shattering, feels the rain of shiny glass shards on his neck and arms. Then there is the shove that pushes him into the wall and the shards that had been gentle water in the back of his mind is gouging his skin, and Lee gasps in pain unimaginable.

Lee gasps in pain as he takes in the dark room, feels the warmth of his wife next to him, the gleam of the gold gilding on his grandfather's books across the room, the hum of Galactica in the walls around him. His hand reaches to rub absently at his neck checking for glass shards, but he already knows that it was just a memory, just a dream, one which he hasn't had in very long time. Taking a deep huff of breath, he releases it as he lies back down and snuggles into his wife's back. His nose pressed deep into her neck, he breathes in her scent, fresh lilac and something so very gently Dee. It should settle his mind, but in his heart, Lee knows there will not be anymore sleep. Instead, he pulls her deeper into his embrace and just holds her.

He knows he shouldn't have said anything. His father was never going to be able to take the knowledge that the happy, smiling family he thought he had left behind had been a fantasy. His father for all of his strength has deep seated weaknesses. Zak was one, one that was slowly healing, but his mother…his mother, and Kara too, were both weaknesses that would never be overcome because the Old Man would always want them to be in his heart.

Lee's own control where those people were concerned was tenuous at best. He was having to actively push Kara out of his system, just as he had tried to do with his mother after Zak had left for college. Lee hopes without the familial obligation pulling him towards Kara, that he will secede this time. It took death to release Lee from the atmosphere of his mother's influence, her wrath and anger, gravity wells pulling him toward her.

He sees so much of his mother in Kara, now that he considers it, and he is very aware of the mistake he might have made in choosing Kara, no matter how much he sizzled near her. They would have burned so bright; it would have created a supernova that obliterated the worlds around them. There is a sadness camped in his heart that twinges as he takes the next breath.

He has lived in that house. He has been the child of Sam and Kara, and he contemplates the grace of the Gods that have always seemed to hate him before. _Thank you, Lords of Kobol, for saving me from myself_.

Lee shakes his shoulders slightly trying to dislodge the tension that has been there since the abortive attempt to describe the …that house. Those four walls, the silence after the screams. Those emotions he has never overcome, despite his exquisite control and the years since.

Lee wonders if his dad will ever be able to handle the truth, if Lee will hide this like so many other things in his life that no one wanted to hear. No one wanted to hear that his girlfriend and baby had been on Picon when it was nuked and he never got to say, "I'm sorry." No one wanted to hear that it isn't enough to live for Earth, they had to rebuild from the ashes on the move. No one wanted to hear that he doubted himself more than they doubted him. No one wanted to hear that the very thing that made him commit mutiny was the part that shattered when his father was gunned down in front of him. No one wanted to hear that he didn't want to live after the Blackbird. No one wanted to hear that he was depressed and impotent above New Caprica.

No one has ever listened to Lee Adama's silent screams of rage, impotence, and helplessness. Maybe Lee has never really screamed because he has grown up protecting those he loved from the reality of life. In this universe, on this ship of frak, he can only protect those he loves from the pain of a past they have never known.

He can give his father a pretty lie. _We missed you, but mom took care of us_. It isn't as significant as, "_If it were you, we'd never leave._" But sometimes the fantasy is more important. So Lee practices in the dark, holding his wife, trying to force down the memory of his mother's wrath as he repeats in a gentle murmur, "We missed you, but mom took care of us."


End file.
